Spring 2017 Conference at Lake Tahoe, April 21-22, 2017
The 21st Annual Spring Conference was held in South Lake Tahoe on April 21-22, 2017 at Lake Tahoe Community College.
Friday Keynote Speaker: Rick Luttman, Sonoma State University
The Battleship Game
We will discuss a simplified version of the game of "Battleship", producing the optimal strategies for both an attacking and a defending player. This game, though greatly simplified, will provide an opportunity to understand the principles of the mathematical field known as Game Theory, which uses low-level tools to analyze situations of conflict and competition such as those occurring in economics, criminal justice, romance, and warfare that are not at all recreational.
Rick Luttmann is Professor Emeritus of Mathematics at Sonoma State University in Rohnert Park, California. He earned degrees in mathematics from Amherst College (BA 1961), Stanford University (MS 1964), and the University of Arizona (PhD 1967). As an editor for the MAA’s "Monthly" problem section, he specializes in classical geometry.
Saturday Keynote Speaker: John Callas, Director of the Mars Rover Project at JPL and Math Faculty at Pasadena City College
Are we alone in the universe? Essentially a Mathematical Question
Five hundred years ago, Copernicus advanced the theory that the Earth was not the center of the Solar System. That theory revolutionized our understanding of the Universe. It was initially met with great opposition because of what it meant about our own significance. Today there is a second Copernican revolution underway that will once again alter our significance. Advances in technologies and techniques, and the application of mathematics are enabling the detection, observation and study of Earth-like planets around other stars with recent results suggesting an incalculable number of candidate worlds. And several deep-space missions are currently exploring potentially-habitable worlds within our own Solar System as possible abodes for life beyond the Earth. With several candidate habitable worlds within our Solar System, and a likely uncountable number of solar systems in the Universe, we are once again left with a great challenge to our own significance. Within the next few years, we may be poised to answering that central question, ’Are we alone in the Universe?’
John L. Callas, of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., has been project manager of NASA's Mars Exploration Rover project since March 2006. Previously, as science manager and then deputy project manager, he had helped lead the rover project since 2000. Callas grew up near Boston, Mass. He received his Bachelor's degree in Engineering from Tufts University, Medford, Mass., in 1981 and his Masters and Ph.D. in Physics from Brown University, Providence, R.I., in 1983 and 1987, respectively. He joined JPL to work on advanced spacecraft propulsion, which included such futuristic concepts as electric, nuclear and antimatter propulsion. In 1989 he began work supporting the exploration of Mars with the Mars Observer mission and has since worked on seven Mars missions. In addition to his Mars work, Callas is involved in the development of instrumentation for astrophysics and planetary science, and teaches mathematics at Pasadena City College as an adjunct faculty member.
Schedule of the Saturday Concurrent Sessions
Presentations provided can be found below.
| Room/Session | Session 1 9:00 am - 10:00 am |
Session 2 10:30 am - 11:30 am |
Session 3 2:30 pm - 3:30 pm |
Session 4 4:00 pm - 5:00 pm |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| A 208 |
History of Math in Competitive Math Problems Steve Davis Powerpoint |
Wanna Hear About My Problems? Steve Blasberg |
Can Zombies Do Math? OR Humanism as a Philosophy of Mathematics Gizem Karaali |
The Math of Rock & Pop Helene Nehrebecki Powerpoint |
| B 103 |
The Logic and Literature of Lewis Carroll Sue Welsch Powerpoint |
Recreational Exponentiation Paul Kinion Powerpoint |
From the Abacus to the iPhone John Martin |
The Randomness of Real Numbers Tim Melvin |
| E 106 |
Phoenix Numbers Walter Kehowski |
Pirate Geometry Michael Serra Presentation I II III |
Ancient Egypt, Archimedes, the Circle and its Triangle Chuck Barnett Powerpoint |
No Session |
View the Full Conference Program or the Mini-Program
Other Events
Your conference registration includes a Foundation reception on Friday evening along with a continental breakfast and a lunch on Saturday. There will also be a Geocaching event immediately after lunch. Weather permitting, you will be given math problems whose solutions are the GPS coordinates of the hidden cache.
Future CMC3 Conferences
Information about future conferences is available.